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Analyst: NGP Will Likely Have More Success Than PSP

In addition to being impressed with Uncharted 3 in 3D, EEDAR's Jesse Divnich also had plenty to say concerning Sony's Next Generation Portable (NGP).

One of his "Key Takeaways" from the event was the following: their recent hands-on session confirmed the original analysis that the NGP will do better in the market than its predecessor. Third-party support will be crucial to the platform's success and although Sony has only announced one such title (Call of Duty), Divnich expects "all major third-party publishers to announce support at E3 2011." Here's a full quote concerning the NGP's future:

"Even after our second hands-on experience, EEDAR is re-iterating its expectations on the NGP hardware. EEDAR continues to expect the NGP to handsomely surpass the install of its PSP predecessor in all three major regions (Japan, North America, and Europe).

While we do anticipate that all major publishers will support the NGP, we expect full scale third-party adoption to be more methodical when compared to the rapid third-party adoption received by the PSP. Unfortunately, due to piracy and declining sales, the PSP never lived up to the third-parties expectations and for that reason third-party publishers will likely be more cautious with the NGP."

We still need to know the price, but analysts have previously estimated a consumer cost of $250 - $300, which isn't entirely unreasonable, but for most, it's still a hefty investment. Provided the games are there, though, this little unit could be pretty huge.

I want the psp2 to cost somewhere in the lines of 400 dollars with all the bell and whistles. By that, i mean i heard that sony took some things out of the ngp (and i'm guessing it's a lot) just so it can price compete with the 3ds.

I want the psp2 to kill the 3ds in graphics detail, more apps, you name it. But alas, i think the quality of the games will look pretty much the same on both systems. Unlike the xbox\ps3 vs. the wii.

I think the NGP's success will depend on how comfortable and usable its dual-analogue sticks are to use.If one can play popular FPSes (*cough* CoD *cough*) on it well, then I think NGP has nowhere to go but UP.

I still think about Ben's article on where the NGP will stand in respect to being a on the go hardcore gaming rig or a popular gadget.

Hopefully it can grab both markets, but as much as I hate to say this it might need some serious kiddy shovelware to grab that demographic it needs to compete with 3DS. I know there's plenty of folks here who can see that ninty isn't really offering much here but a gimmick, however the casual public isn't as informed.

If someone hacks the NGP...it all goes downhill from there. I swear there have been MILLIONS of dollars lost just by the whole issue with the PSP today.

In something like the NGP, which holds a lot more power that is comparable to a gaming console...game developers are certainly going to have to spend money working on games for it. But once again, if it's hacked...it just goes DOWNHILL for game developers from there...and ultimately SONY since no one would want to develop for their system since they aren't making a profit.

At the very least...NGP owners would get PORTS of PS3 games if such a situation were to ever occur.

Piracy on the PSP in The US and UK was particularly bad. Despite pretty decent unit sales for the hardware, many games sold quite poorly, despite being pretty darned good games. Someone once wrote that 5% of those using custom firmware are truly using it for Homebrew applications that extend the device's function, while the other 95% use it purely for piracy. That's pretty much borne out by the experience of the PSP in the US.

Now, I don't know about you, but it sure seems to me that it's more unfair to allow a platform to be hacked and fail, negatively affecting 100% of legitimate gamers. Than it is to impose strict security and anti-hacking measures that inconvenience a far smaller number of gamers who might use Homebrew apps. The impact of piracy can be seen in the number of game torrents available at launch of a game, as well as in the usage statistics for such torrents. It's not a pretty picture.

Perhaps Sony could use their game updates from the PSP as a measure of security?

Not sure how effective it would be from a technical standing point (Highlander, you might know?) but all new games released after a firmware update required the update to play.

Maybe the NGP could be hack proofed with constant updates required to play new titles, and each update cancelling out any mods or chips detected in the system?

It sounds time consuming and expensive, but I think it is an effective measure against piracy.

I feel really sorry for Sony right now. The cracked PSP problem, the whole GeoHotz debacle (which is finally over now) and now Anonymous making everyone mad, Sony just can't seem to catch a break!! Why is Sony always a target? I haven't heard anything about 360 or Wii being hacked? Wait, the Wii, yes. Even my cousins have a chipped Wii with over 160 games on an HDD. Nintendo's install base is so huge though that they've just ignored it.

Shame Sony can't ignore hacks and mods like Nintendo, cause the PSP problem is what happened when they did.

Actually one of the little known aspects of the PS3 security failures is that two specific failures precipitated the entire chain of events.

The first was to loss of one of the service keys used to push PS3s into service mode. With that illicit token hackers were able to jailbreak the PS3 by forcing it into debug mode - which allows most anything to be run. After that happened, some extremely capable mathematicians and hackers attacked the firmware encryption. Sony acted to block the jailbreak devices, and eventually managed to block them from working completely. However the debug mode enabled privileged attacks on the PS3 firmware, and ultimately a flaw in the encryption code exposed the private signing key, as well as allowing the extraction of other keys stored in the firmware.

Had the security code not been flawed, the jailbreaking would have been stopped by firmware updates. The awful coding failure/quality control failure in the firmware's encryption routines allowed everything to be broken wide open.

It's fair to say that the hackers actually lucked out because if the firmware had not contained the glaring error it did, the hackers would essentially be at square one, still.

I would anticipate that the NGP security firmware will have been tested to destruction by multiple teams looking for exactly the kinds of catastrophic flaw that hobbled the PS3. I wouldn't say it will be hack-proof, but it will be very hack resistant. The other thing I think Sony will have learned from the PS3 is that PSN access will use an encrypted protocol that allows PSN to request responses that can only be returned by authentic firmware. I'm certain that there will be enhanced checking in game executables as well so that a game can tell if either it has been compromised, or if the firmware has been compromised and simply halt.

Simply put, hackers should not anticipate an easy ride.

I also have been considering whether there might be a change in the delivery of systems so that when you buy the system it has no firmware, and only a heavily encrypted hardware bootstrap. When you buy the system you have to separately agree to the license terms and conditions to obtain the firmware. That way, there is none of this I bought the hardware I can do what I want with the system software on it, because the system software would be delivered as a separate product. That would make legal remedies easier and more biting.

We'll see how it shakes out. I know that hackers like to say everything can be hacked, and obviously they are correct even if the computing time required is a substantial fraction of the life of the universe right now. Ever advancing computer speeds mean that eventually even a brute force attack is possible. The trick it to make it so that such an attack is unfeasible in a reasonable time. The key thing is to make it difficult enough that there's no point trying.

There's another reason why the NGP will have more success than the PSP: It has history. Before the launch of the PSP there was nothing to gauge, nothing in Sony's portable history. It being the first portable game system for Sony, no one knew to expect. But now that people know, the NGP has something to live off of. Besides, now Sony knows what works and what doesn't. Trial and error. It's experience. They learn from their mistakes, and they improve upon what they've already done correctly. Look at the difference between the PS1 and the PS2. Tremendous growth for the PS2, because of good foundation and reputation that the PS1 built.

Let's just hope it doesn't take as long as the PSP did to get good games. I had to sell a PSP because I was bored as hell with it. Then a friend got me the Dissidia bundle last year. And its been a good system. Sadly not as used as my DS, but let's just admit it...the DS' library beats the PSP's into the ground. And with PSP2/NGP being later than 3DS in release the 3DS will, of course, already have its foot in the door.

And I'm thinking of getting the PSP2/NGP, but I'm not as excited for it as I'd like to be. Most of what's been shown as left me feeling "meh" towards it. It looks nice, yes, but I don't see much that'll really sell me on it. I guess I'll wait to see what Sony shows off at E3. Hopefully we get some potential launch games listed.

Let's just hope it doesn't take as long as the PSP did to get good games. I had to sell a PSP because I was bored as hell with it. Then a friend got me the Dissidia bundle last year. And its been a good system. Sadly not as used as my DS, but let's just admit it...the DS' library beats the PSP's into the ground. And with PSP2/NGP being later than 3DS in release the 3DS will, of course, already have its foot in the door.

And I'm thinking of getting the PSP2/NGP, but I'm not as excited for it as I'd like to be. Most of what's been shown as left me feeling "meh" towards it. It looks nice, yes, but I don't see much that'll really sell me on it. I guess I'll wait to see what Sony shows off at E3. Hopefully we get some potential launch games listed.